WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. THIS BLOG HAS BEEN CALLED "THE DEFINITIVE BLOG ON MIAMI CRIMINAL LAW" BY THE NY TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE POPE, AND DONALD TRUMP WHO ALSO ONCE SAID IT WAS "REALLY GREAT". POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM

Saturday, February 09, 2008

HI! How are ya doing?

This being South Florida, the water or the air is different and things like this happen:An attorney who went to Federal Court in Broward in support of her husband who is on supervised release, is now in solitary confinement for shaking the hand of the AUSA.The Sun Sentinel story is HERESee You In Court, NOT shaking hands with the other side.PS. If you read our favourite federal blogger as we do on a daily basis, it occurs to us that he recently wrote about being in court and shaking hands with a DOJ lawyer he knew in the Kuehne case. Can an investigation be brewing as we brew our Saturday coffee? Fear not Mr. Markus, we have built our reputation on defending misdemeanor battery cases!

38 comments:

Bertie Wooster
said...

Rump,

Shame on you using this incident to run down the United States Attornies. Even in the warmest of fictional inns of court outrage would ensue if a barrister went to the Old Bailey for his wife. It's just not done old man.

A gentleman would impress on his friends and brothers in the bar and find a worthy advocate for his spouse; detachment is necessary for effectiveness. Wasn't it you who represented fair Portia's brother after that unfortunate bar fight?

"Rentas almost pulled Keene's arm out of its socket." A handshake is not a crime; chasing an opposing barrister down to hurt him is. Clearly the crown's advocated was not running away becase she was rude; the opposing lawyer scared her and she was running away from a lunitic.

It is so typical of those slimebags that slip on the silk stockings in your vacation home to let one of their own wander alone to court. She is a commercial litigation attorney for pete's sake; she does not know what the inside of a courtroom looks like.

Ms. Rentas knows her way around a courtroom and also knows the difference between a handshake and a battery.

Ms. Rentas is a license attorney with the Florida Bar and previously clerked for a judge in the federal arena in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

She is absolutely not guilty of what she has been charged with.

She went to court to support her husband and to testify in a court proceeding. Her testimony was factually necessary for the hearing. She was not there as an advocate for her spouse.

She shook the hand of the AUSA after the hearing. The next thing she knows she is being handcuffed in court, taken to lockup and then shackled and transported by bus to the FDC. She went through two strip searches and spent the evening in confinement at FDC. She was taken into bond hearings in prison garb and chains and finally was released on a $100k PSB with several restrictions.

All of this was completely unnecessary. I will not go into any more facts as Gwen Tuggle (her lead attorney) and I will be adressing our concerns with the USAO next week.

Why is that when I read the blog I am dismayed by this post but when I read the article I'm dismayed by the inaccuracy of the post? This was more than just a simple handshake:

"Keene did not shake Brewer's hand at first, but Brewer insisted that she do so and continued to follow Keene," wrote Deputy U.S. Marshall Robert Kremenik in a misdemeanor arrest report.

"Brewer forcefully grabbed onto Keene's right hand and squeezed it, pulling Keene toward her, forcing Keene off balance. With Keene in hand, Brewer made an upward, then a quick downward motion and pulled Keene toward the ground moving her forward, almost causing Keene to fall to the ground," the marshal wrote.

Keene's head and neck were snapped forward, then backward, as a result of the force applied by Brewer Rentas, causing Keene's shoulder and arm to be jerked forward, Kremenik wrote.

Ah, civil litigation. Litigation which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"

She shook the broad's hand. Then she's in custody. Doesn't the whole "her head was snapped back and then forwards" sound a bit melodramatic to you? I'd tear that fragile AUSA apart on cross. If she thought she was shaken up after a handshake, wait until I got done questioning her in court and she'd have wished I just shook her hand. Poor little prosecutor's arm is hurt. Waaa waaaa waaaah.

Count 1: Conspiracy to committ pre-meditated murder of an american citizen: On or about January 20, 2001 the defendant was sworn in as president of the United States. The defendant immediately planned on attacking the nation of Iraq because while his father was President he attacked the nation of Iraq and defeated their army after they invaded oil rich Kuwait. The Secretary of Defense and Len Aspin and National Security Advisor Richard Clarke and other advisors and cabinet members can attest to the fact that the President planned to invade Iraq to retailiate against their assassination attempt on the life of the president's father during the Clinton administration. That attempt failed. The president conspired with the national security advisor, Ms. Rice, Colin Powell and head of the CIA to make a fraudulent presentation to the United Nations accusing Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction as a cover story for the true reason for invasion, the retaliation for the assassination attempt. In March 2003, using retaliation for the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 as justification, the president of the U.S. as commander in chief of the armed forces declared war on Iraq and ordered the invasion of Iraq. Subsequent to the American invasion the President of the U.S. has admitted at least twice to the american media that Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on the U.S. and once admitted that Saddam Hussein tried to kill my father. As the U.S. approaches the 5 th anniversary of the war, over 4500 American soldiers and civilian contractors have died, over 15000 have been seriously injured, over 1000 have committed suicide and an estimated 500000 Iraqi civilian non-combatants have been killed. The U.S. Justice Department has just held a public news conference announcing the indictment of a South Florida criminal defense attorney who rendered advice to another criminal defense attorney as to whether the fee the attorney received to defend a drug smuggler was from money derived from illegal drug sales in the U.S. , of a product which kills approximately 10000 people a year. 400000 people a year are killed by legal cigareetes, 10000 by legal handguns, at least 25000 from legal alcohol. Coincidentally the indicted attorney has inside knowledge as to how the president stole the 2000 election in the State of Florida leader to his election and the aforemention atrocities. Furthermore, if the attorneys for Enron, Harris, Bechtel, Halliburton and a dozen other companies had the source of their legal fees scrutinized there would be 10000 lawyers indicted, many former federal prosecutors, at the best law firms in the country. Furthermore the U.S. Justice Department has been totally ineffective in doing anything to combat the most serios social/criminal problems in this nation including the fact that you now cannot go one week in this country without reading of mass murder. This week, 3 in LA, 5 in Missouri, 3 in a Louisiana college. The lack of domestic social leadership in this country is an abomination and now the U.S. Justice deparment will spend months trying to imprison at least one and probably a half dozen targeted criminal defense attorneys as opposed to sealing the borders with the military to prevent the importation of the illegal drugs to begin with just like they spent a year investigating the President of the U.S.'s sex life as opposed to FBI agent concerns over middle eastern men in Florida and Arizona wanting to learn how to steer but not land planes. That was Louis Freeh and Tom Delay's contribution to the U.S. and I sure people like myself who exericise their first amendment right, particularly when supported by ironclad fact, do not have a bright future but will succumb eventually to the same dilemma Mr. Kuehne finds himself in. And if McCain is elected Iraq and Iran will continue for another 15 years until we become the target of WWIII like Germany in WWII. We have no moral, ethical, or legal right to be in Iraq and our president is an unindicted coconspirator war criminal. His only defense is that if he did not retalitate against some nation after 9/11 he would have been assassinated by the military industrial complex as was JFK. /s/ you know who from my prior postings, sentence structure, grammar and other identifiers which the fbi and cia are adept at, that is if my computer isn't already hacked into by them. The truth shall set you free, or get you in a shitload of trouble.

I bet the ausa has had more punishment inflicted on her by her dog, during sex, or playing soccer. the marshall is probably a retired cop who hates defense attorneys, in a nation with several mass murders a week a case like this makes a mockery of our country. there was an article in the paper this week that people in haiti are so poor they make sandwiches out of mud. in the u.s. a million tax dollars will be spent prosecuting someone for engaging in at worst an involuntary arm wrestling match. what a pathetic country we have become.

I heard on the streets that Ben Kuenhe resigned from the Florida bar board of governors. Did he resign from the Florida Bar also? Is he negotiating with the DOJ to testify against other attorneys? We will see...

That may be the most ridiculous post you've ever done Rump. I know plenty of people who can "shake your hand" and put you in the hospital. Just another example of how you're real agenda is prosecutor bashing. I bet if the roles were reversed, you'd be screaming to high heaven about the abusive government lawyer.

Rump, your nickname has never been more apt. You are an ass and your comments asinine. How could you condone or excuse conduct like this of an attorney, especially in a courtroom. Clearly, Rentas' actions are not a mere handshake, and your suggestion that you'd compound the violence against the AUSA is childish.

Okay, talk about two extremes. On the one side, the AUSA is lying and trumping everything up. On the other side, the woman tried to hurt someone with a handshake, which is certainly not something inconceivable.

Why someone would persist with following a person for a handshake is beyond me so its suspicious the handshake occurred to begin with.

"Poor little prosecutor's arm is hurt. Waaa waaaa waaaah."

I'm not sure why its necessary to put the word prosecutor in the first sentence.

If it had happened to a defense attorney, and no arrest was made, and a prosecutor made a comment like:

"Poor little defense attorney's arm is hurt. Waaa waaaa waaaah."

Which would sound like a slam to defense attorneys as if to say they deserve everything that happens to them because they are somehow undeserving of sympathy due to their chosen profession.

1) Yes, any physical violence or threat of physical violence cannot be tolerated.

2) If you have been in Federal court and done battle against the Marshals as I have (I once pointed to the Marshal in opening statement and told the jury that the reason they would not see me confering with my client is because the Marshal would not move. He moved.) then you know that they tend to over-react and like to threaten and cower defendants, their families, and defense attorneys. So I am skeptical that some crime occured. But if it did, the person who battered the us attorney should be punished. I am just very skeptical that it went down the way it was written.

For years I have been slandered and defamed at the GJB by both defense and state and never done or thought of doing anything about it. p.s. I was bumped into in the hall the other day and the bathroom was dirtyl. Who do I call. I know . the q.

I do not like some people and as to those people I do not want them to touch me. Who gave this woman the green light to force a hand shake on another person. Even if the allegations are exagerated the fact that someone feels the power to force me to touch them is awful.

We all have people we just do not want to be near or touched by period. At to this the fact that her husband is in court as a defendant and she now thinks that shaking the prosecutors hand is a great idea! I offer my hand to people and if they do not reach out to shake my hand I do not force myself on them.

Was the shake in a sexual tone?Was the shake done while quoting the koran?Was the shake done while singing the Barney song?

Ms. Rentas knows how to churn out paper, how to object to discovery and all the ways for monied might to weary out the right. She does not know her way around a courtroom; she is a commercial litigation attorney. And you, dear Sr, Freeman, ought to know better to come on to a blog read by real lawyers and claim that a commerical litigation attorney is a real lawyer.

Rumpole please do a post on this NY Times story on the Supremes not liking judges being elected and a professor who does not like Judges sitting on cases when one party contributed to the campaign of the sitting Judge.

Hyman Roth: There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. We made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone shook his arm so hard it flew out of the socket and he died. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead and armless, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order to give the handshake, because it had nothing to do with business!

EQUAL PROTECTION ARGUMENT FOR BENEDICT KUEHNE;. The federal government accepts tax payments even if from an illegal source. If a prostiture, inside trader, etc. makes money there are provisions for filing and paying taxes without prosecution. The government just wants the money. 2. The government uses that money to finance the justice dept. which includes the usatty and fed.public defender. the fedpubl.defender defends people who made money importing and/or selling illegal drugs. The us.atty's office does not indict fed.publ.defenders who are paid to defend people where part of their salary is from a budget which accepts money from tainted sources. therefore the defendants right to equal protection under the law is violated by his indictment and no indictment of fed.publ.defenders. the statute violates equal protection. furthermore, even if bk knew the money he was paid came from an illegal source, the same can be said of almost all large law firms which all employ former ausa's. for example- if a company continues to manufacture and derive revenue from intentionally putting in the stream of commerce a defective product which kills, ex. firestone tires, cigarettes, heart medicine, erection pills, they are getting illegal revenue and are paying their lawyers with illegal money and I haven't seen any drug company law firms indicted. some more random thoughts from the one, the only, the Q! NOT1. /s/ the onion peeler.

to 1044. how can you possibly compare pleading out misdemeanors to knowing how to write 46 different types of letters, 120 different ways to complain about failure to comply with discovery, and 33 ways to ask for a defense continuance to wear out a plaintiff. pleassssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssse!

AUSA doesn't like defendant. Her dislike goes to the wife of defendant for various reasons: bitch married a criminal, what a bad person; she has a respectable salary for a lawyer, not collecting some pee on govt check; she is prettier; not as fat; is a trial attorney, not a govt yes man.

So wife shakes hand, gives that condescending look like "I'm still better than you in everything in life".

AUSA can't cry to teacher or tattle, so she uses her little power to toss wife in jail.

If AUSA was a guy, I'd say he was the biggest pussy in the world. Not sure what to call her???

this is not a prosecution predicated on ben helping al gore's failed recount in florida. this prosecution is about roy black and the government's hatred of him. and it starts with pat sullivan.... ben just got swept up with the wrong crew

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE. since mass shootings are a regular occurrence in the u.s., are all judges and attorneys who read this blog and are aware of Thompson's rantings on some type of legal NOTICE so if he truly is crazy and flies off the handle will some victim's family someday be asking why noone took this very disturbed person seriously. by mocking him are we pushing him over the edge.? Is he someday going to bring a gun to a lawyers office, a courthouse, a parking lot, a judge's house etc. and start blowing away a bunch of people because they mocked him or did not take him serious, or some perceived slight. Is this guy a ticking time bomb who needs to be referred to FLA for a psych . eval. or be involuntarily committed by the Baker Act. When you have a problem with people who no one has a problem with, like Judge Tunis, then you really are sick and in need of help. Do we as lawyers need to find help for this man? What will we be saying if he kills 20 people and the media ask why the Fla. Bar and all these lawyers who knew he was a loose cannon did nothing? What if he kills nonlawyers who don't read this blog and then they find out about all these postings and nobody did anything. It is fair to say that this man seems to be a ticking timebomb ready to go off!

at the Columbine massacre the shooters were known to call themselves the trench coat mafia. they killed, people were on notice, now all the victims are suing. thompson's photo should be posted to every judge, courthouse security, and lobby of every building with a lot of law firms.

Attempting to defend this woman for harrassing and attempting to intimidate an AUSA is ridiculous. Any Fed Judge in our district would think this type of conduct entirely unacceptable for an officer of the court, and I agree with the arrest of this woman. I shudder at the thought of a member of the Bar being allowed to physically assault a fellow member. There is just no place for it - other than perhaps the playground.

I once say everyone's favorite federal judge order marshall's to a private atty's office to arrest her because she was 5 minutes late to court. the order was rescinded when she walked in just as the order was being made. just a slight difference between what is tolerated in federal v. state, in state an asa once pushed me in the chest because I asked for discovery. if I had formally complained I would have been laughed out of the building.

3d DCA Watch -- Bye Bye Bunker Edition!
-
So one time in bunker camp the Resplendently Robed Ones™ decided to pretty
much chuck the month of December and go explore the beautiful environs of *Centra...